THE RETURN OF THE ETHELING EADWARD. 647 66 But Siward's battle is fixed by the English Chronicles to 1054, and the battle in which Macbeth died is equally fixed by the Irish Chronicles to 1058. So the Ulster Annals; "Macbeath filius Finnliachi, supremus Rex Albaniæ, occisus est a Malcolmo filio Donnchadi in prœlio." (See also Robertson, i. 123; Burton, i. 373.) The successor of Macbeth is called by Fordun (v. 8) suus [Machabei] consobrinus, nomine Lulach, cognomine Fatuus." Tigernach calls him "Lulacus Rex Albaniæ," and fixes his death, which was "per dolum," to 1058. The Ulster Annals call him "Mac Gil Comgen" (see Robertson, i. 120). Mr. Burton (i. 374) calls. him a son of Gruach. The coronation of Malcolm comes from Fordun (v. 9). Cf. O'Conor's note on the Ulster Annals, Rer. Hib. Scriptt. iv. 338. NOTE FF. pp. 368, 410. THE MISSION OF EALDRED AND THE RETURN OF THE THE sources of our information with regard to Bishop Ealdred's mission to the Imperial Court curiously illustrate the occasionally deficient nature of our authorities, and the way in which one writer fills up gaps in another. The mission of Ealdred in 1054 and the return of the Ætheling in 1057 are both of them distinctly recorded in our national Chronicles. They are indeed much more than recorded; each event finds at least one Chronicler to dwell upon it with special interest. But from the Chronicles alone we should never find out that there was any connexion between the two events. The coming of the Etheling is recorded by the Peterborough writer, and it attracts the special attention of his Worcester brother, who bursts into song on the occasion. But there is not a word in either to connect his coming with the German mission of Ealdred. About that mission the Peterborough writer is silent, just as he is silent about the Scottish war of Siward. Abingdon (1054) records Ealdred's journey, but says only, "On þam ylcan geare ferde Ealdred biscop suð ofer sæ into Sexlande, and wears þær mid mycelre arwardnesse underfangen." From this account we might guess, but we could do no more than guess, that Ealdred went in some public character. The Worcester writer is naturally fuller on the doings of his own Bishop; still what chiefly occupies his attention is the "mickle worship" with which Ealdred was received by the Emperor, the long time that he was away, and the arrangements which he made for the discharge of his duties during his absence (see p. 371). He does indeed tell us that Ealdred went on the King's errand; but he does not tell us what the King's errand was, any more than he did in recording Ealdred's earlier mission to Rome in 1049. His words are; "Ðæs ilcan geres for Aldred biscop to Colne ofer sæ, pœs kynges ærende, and wears þær underfangen mid mycelan weordscipe fram þam Casere, and þær he wunode wel neh an gér; and him geaf ægðer þeneste, ge se Biscop on Colone and se Casere." So William of Malmesbury (Vit. S. Wlst. Ang. Sacr. ii. 249) looks on the objects of the embassy as best summed up in the Herodotean formula eidws où déyw. Ealdred goes to the Emperor, "quædam negotia, quorum cognitionem caussa non flagitat, compositurus." But he has much to tell us about Ealdred's reception by the Emperor ("quum in Imperatoriæ Augustæ dignationis oculis invenisset gratiam, aliquot ibi dierum continuatione laborum suorum accepit pausam"), and still more about the presents which he received. As the biographer of Wulfstan, he could not fail to tell us about two service-books in which Wulfstan was deeply interested (see p. 460), and which Ealdred now received as a present from the Emperor. In his history he does speak of an embassy to bring about the return of the Etheling, but he altogether misconceives the circumstances (see p. 370); he makes no mention of Ealdred, and he fancies that the embassy went direct to Hungary (“Rex Edwardus. . . misit ad Regem Hunorum." ii. 228). It is from Florence, and from Florence only, that we get a complete and accurate filling up of all our gaps. He tells us, under 1054, "Aldredus Wigorniensis Episcopus. . . magnis cum xeniis Regis fungitur legatione ad Imperatorem, a quo simul et ab Herimanno Coloniensi archipræsule magno susceptus honore, ibidem per integrum annum mansit, et Regis ex parte Imperatori suggessit ut, legatis Ungariam missis, inde fratruelem suum Eadwardum, Regis videlicet Eadmundi Ferrei Lateris filium, reduceret, Angliamque venire faceret." We now know what the King's errand was on which Ealdred was sent, and, knowing that it was to bring back THE RETURN OF THE ETHELING EADWARD. 649 the Ætheling, we might guess for ourselves why the Ætheling was to be brought back. But Florence afterwards expressly tells us this also, under the year 1057; "Decreverat enim Rex illum post se regni hæredem constituere." The reforms which Ealdred's study of the ecclesiastical foundations in Germany enabled him to make in England come from the local historian of York; "Multa quæ ad honestatem ecclesiasticæ observantiæ, multa quæ ad rigorem ecclesiasticæ disciplinæ pertinent, audivit, vidit, et memoriæ commendavit, quæ postea in ecclesiis Anglorum observari fecit." (T. Stubbs, X Scriptt. 1701.) Compare the remarks on the good discipline of the German Churches made by the Waltham writer (see p. 442 and below, Note PP). That Ealdred had Abbot Elfwine for his companion in this embassy (see p. 371), I infer from a remarkable entry in Domesday (208) which can have no other meaning. Land in Huntingdonshire is said to have been granted by Eadward "Sancto Benedicto de Ramesy, propter unum servitium quod Abbas Alwinus fecit ei in Saxoniâ." I can conceive no other service in Saxony which Elfwine could have rendered to the King, save this share in Ealdred's mission to "Sexland." Elfwine's former mission to Rheims is not to the purpose, as no geography can put Rheims in Saxony. Nor do I understand the remark of Sir Henry Ellis (i. 306), that we have here "an allusion to the Confessor's residence abroad before he came to the throne." What dealings had Eadward with Saxony in those days? The only difficulty is that the local historian of Ramsey, who is very full on the doings of Ælfwine, and who speaks of his going to Rheims, says nothing of his embassy to Köln. But the silence of this writer has equally to be explained on any other view of the "servitium in Saxoniâ." One would like to know a little more than we do about the sojourn of the Ethelings in Hungary, the course by which they came thither, and the position which they held there. I mentioned in vol. i. p. 410 that Adam of Bremen takes them to Russia. There is also a most singular passage in what Professor Stubbs calls the "Legal Appendix" of Roger of Howden (ii. 236 of his edition); "Iste præfatus Eadmundus [Ferreum-latus sc.] habuit quemdam filium Eadwardum nomine, qui mox, patre mortuo, timore Regis Cnuti aufugit ad regnum Dogorum, quod nos melius vocamus Russiam. Quem Rex terræ Malescoldus nomine, ut cognovit quis esset, honeste retinuit." Professor Stubbs says (lxxxvi.), “Other copies have Rugorum, others Hunnorum, from which perhaps our author freely translated Dogorum quasi Hundorum. [Was the word dog in use so early?]. . . . The passage is generally explained of Stephen King of Hungary, but it is surely very obscure. Is there confusion with Godescalc prince of the Wends?" It is plain that to get from Sweden into Hungary they must have gone through some of the Slavonic parts of Europe, either Russian or Wendish. Roger, it will be seen, leaves out Eadmund, and makes Eadward able to act for himself. So William of Malmesbury (ii. 180) says of the two children, "Hunorum Regem petierunt." That they reached Hungary safely is plain, but we do not hear what became of their mother Ealdgyth, or whether they were accompanied by any English attendants, or whether they kept up any kind of intercourse with England. Eadmund must have died young; at least this seems to be implied by William of Malmesbury (ii. 180), who says that the children reached Hungary "ubi, dum benigne aliquo tempore habiti sunt, major diem obiit." ("Processu temporis ibidem vitam finivit," says Florence, 1017.) William of Malmesbury also makes Eadward marry a sister of the Queen of the Hungarians. That is, I suppose, the meaning of his words, "minor Agatham Reginæ sororem in matrimonium accepit." I have not found, in such German and Hungarian writers as I have been able to refer to, any mention of Eadward's marriage, or indeed of his sojourn in Hungary at all. But there is no doubt that the wife of Saint Stephen, who was reigning in Hungary when the Ethelings came there, and who died in 1038, was Gisla, called by the Hungarians Keisla, a sister of the Emperor Henry the Second. See Ekkehard, ap. Pertz, vi. 192; Sigebert, Chron. 1010 (ap. Pertz, vi. 354); Annalista Saxo, 1002, 1038 (Pertz, vi. 650, 682); Thwrocz, Chron. Hung. ii. 30 (Scriptt. Rer. Hung. 96). Her sister would therefore be a sister of the sainted Emperor himself, whose Imperial reign lasted from 1014 to 1024. A sister of Henry and Gisla could hardly fail to be many years older than Eadward, and we might have expected to find some record of the marriage, whereas we do not even find any sister of the Emperor Henry available for the purpose. There THE RETURN OF THE ÆTHELING EADWARD. 651 can be no doubt that Agatha was not a sister, but a more distant kinswoman of the Emperor, most probably a niece. The poem in the Worcester Chronicle (1067) says more vaguely, "He begeat þæs Caseres mága to wife . . . seo was Agathes gehaten:" and so again in the later entry in 1067, "Hire [Margaret's] modor cynn gæð to Heinrice Casere, pe hæfde anwald ofer Rome." Florence (1017) says more distinctly, "Eadwardus Agatham, filiam germani Imperatoris Heinrici in matrimonium accepit." Mr. Thorpe, in his note on the passage in Florence, following Suhm, makes her the daughter of the Emperor's brother Bruno, who was Bishop of Augsburg from 1007 to 1029 (Ann. Aug. ap. Pertz, iii. 124, 125). The local Annals speak of him as "beatæ memoriæ;" but he seems to have been a turbulent Prelate, and a great thorn in the side of his Imperial brother. See Ekkehard, u. s.; Arnold de Sancto Emmerammo, ii. 57 (ap. Pertz, iv. 571); Adalbold, Vit. Henr. II. c. 24 (ap. Pertz, iv. 689); Adalbert, Vit. Henr. II. 20 (ap. Pertz, iv. 805, 811). If this genealogy be correct, later English royalty is connected with the Old-Saxon stock in an unlooked-for way. Orderic has a more amazing version than all. He makes (701 D) the Ætheling marry the daughter of Solomon, and receive the Kingdom of Hungary as her dower. He distinctly calls Eadward King of the Huns; "Hæc [Margarita] nimirum filia fuit Eduardi Regis Hunorum, qui fuit filius Edmundi cognomento Irnesidæ, fratris Eduardi Regis Anglorum, et exsul conjugem accepit cum regno filiam Salomonis Regis Hunorum." The delay in the arrival of the Ætheling (see pp. 373, 408) was most probably caused by the wars between the Empire and the Hungarian Kings who succeeded Stephen. Besides the war with Andrew mentioned in the text, Henry the Third had an earlier Hungarian war, which was waged against the usurper Ouban on behalf of Peter the predecessor of Andrew, by whom Peter was blinded. See Lambert, 1041-1046. On the relations between Henry, Andrew, and Conrad of Bavaria, see Hermann Contr. 1053 (ap. Pertz, v. 133), whose account, as usual, it is not easy to reconcile with the Hungarian traditions preserved by Thwrocz. But there must be something wrong when Lappenberg (517) says, "Wahrscheinlich verzögerte die zwischen dem Kaiser und dem König Andreas von Ungarn damals ausgebrochene Fehde, sowie |